![]() One of the things you’ll probably need to do is set the aperture of the lens you want to use. If you’re using an adapter, there could be a couple more steps. If you’re using a tilt-shift lens, it may be as simple as changing your camera settings to accept a manual lens, then figuring out the best way to “see” the plane of focus as you tilt (focus-assist, for example). Every camera requires a different skill-set and process, but generally, if you can work out how to use a manual lens on your camera body, you’ll be able to figure out the ins and outs of getting your tilt setup working. Setting up your camera to shoot with a tilt adapter, or even with a tilt-shift lens, can involve a steep learning curve. Consider a cheap tilt-adapter before splurging on something more specialised and expensive (see below). And it can be fun to experiment with.Įxperiment. Yet it doesn’t offer photographers a unique tool in their kit-bag. And sometimes it can make an image less compelling than it might have been with a traditional PoF. There are no rules in photography, but as with most things, tilting can be overdone. Objects in the foreground can be brought into focus at the same moment as objects far away, without needing to stop down a lens and bring everything into focus. Tilt-photography can also draw a person’s eye to a particular element of a scene, or even to several places at once. Most photographers use it sparingly, to add a point of difference to their work, something that can add interest and creativity to a collection. Tilt-photography produces unique imagery that can be disarming, intriguing, and surreal. This is one aspect of mechanical tilt-shifting that can’t be emulated easily in post. It also shifts the PoF in unusual ways in other parts of the image. Image 2 demonstrates how a tilted lens can reveal a scene : the image will render the subject in focus from the chest up, and out of focus below the waist. Notice how it covers most of the subject in the first image. Image 1 is the way a regular lens (with a fairly shallow depth of field) captures a scene. This effect can be unusual to the eye, which is not used to seeing the PoF altered in such a way. It can also have the effect of bringing into focus objects in the foreground and background. This Plane of Focus can be manipulated so that it passes through objects at an angle, leaving some of the object in focus, and some out of focus. When you tilt the lens plane, the plane of focus (PoF) also tilts. The image plane, lens plane and plane of focus are parallel. Ordinarily, a camera lens provides focus on a single plane. The effect of shifting the plane of focus for many portraits can’t be replicated in post to the same extent as miniature-faking can, so mechanical methods still prevail. Throughout this time creatives have also been using tilt lenses for creative portraiture. ![]() This technique had traction for years, until advances in software technology allowed photographers to achieve very similar results in post. Miniature-faking was popularized in the 90s, and continues to be used by creatives to produce images that look like miniature models. Architectural photographers and some landscape photographers began to use these tools to improve the accuracy of their imaging.īut it wasn’t too long before creatives adapted the technology to their own ends. Many other manufacturers soon followed suit. Creativity tends to follow very quickly in the wake of new technical possibilities.ĭedicated tilt-shift lenses arrived in 1973, with Canon’s TS35mm f/2.8 S.S.C. This was the time that freelensing became possible. We can assume then that tilt-photography began around the time interchangeable lenses were invented. Maybe it’ll catch on!Īll that is needed for tilt-photography is the ability to tilt a lens when shooting. For this article we’ll call it tilt-photography instead. Much of the gear these days that allows for this type of shooting doesn’t even have the ability to shift at all, yet because of the inertia of language we still call it tilt-shift photography, even for applications that involve no shifting, and gear that has no shift capabilities. We’re interested in the latter component, the tilting of the plane of focus. The shift component is mostly used by people photographing tall buildings, to keep the sides of the buildings looking straight, rather than angled away, whereas the tilt aspect has become synonymous with more creative work, such as miniature effects and creative portraiture. Traditional tilt-shift lenses were able to do two things: tilt the plane of focus, and shift the image plane parallel to the subject. Tilt-shift photography was originally used by architectural photographers to reduce perspective distortion when shooting buildings, and by landscape photographers to get entire scenes in focus, without needing to stop down their lenses too much.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |